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Terms of Employment
Terms of Employment is the 8th episode of the second season and 30th overall. Will faces a dilemma of accepting a job offer and supporting Grace. Jack and Karen get hired to act on an employee training video. Synopsis Mr. Doucette Grace is planning to sue a client who backs out after she had already made an expensive purchase, so she asks Will to represent her. He finds out that Grace's client is notorious lawyer Ben Doucette so Will prepares himself for a meeting after being unemployed for a month. However, upon meeting Doucette, Will and Grace are shocked when he offers Will a five-year contract instead. On Will's first day at the firm, Doucette instructs him to make Grace's case against him "go away", implying Will must defend his new boss instead of Grace. She learns of this and naturally feels betrayed and refuses to accept Will's money. During arbitration, Will decides to side with Grace and Ben reveals that he was planning to pay her all along and was just testing Will's integrity. Mr. Weckerly Jack gets hired to act in an employee training video about sexual harassment in the workplace. On the first day of the shoot, Jack's female co-star gets sick and is replaced by Karen, who drove him to the set. As part of the scene, Jack puts his tongue in Karen's ear and she is uncontrollably turned on, which results in a total of 148 takes. Cast Main * Eric McCormack (Will Truman) * Debra Messing (Grace Adler) * Sean Hayes (Jack McFarland) * Megan Mullally (Karen Walker) Guest * Gregory Hines (Ben Doucette) * Robert Clendenin (Bob Dent) * Aaron Lustig (Marv Buhl) * Dan Sachoff (Announcer) * Jo Marie Payton (Mrs. Freeman) Media Ep 02 09-1523439548.jpg Ep 02 09-1523439555.jpg Ep 02 09-1523439562.jpg Ep 02 09-1523439605.jpg Ep 02 09.jpg Ep 02 09-0.jpg Ep 02 09-1.jpg Ep 02 09-2.jpg Ep 02 09-3.jpg Ep 02 09-1523439592.jpg Ep 02 09-1523439569.jpg Ep 02 09-1523439577.jpg Ep 02 09-1523439584.jpg Ep 02 09-1523439598.jpg Ep 02 09-1523439499.jpg Ep 02 09-1523439506.jpg Ep 02 09-1523439516.jpg Ep 02 09-1523439524.jpg Ep 02 09-1523439533.jpg Ep 02 09-1523439540.jpg Notes * First appearance of Ben Doucette and Mrs. Freeman. * Will finally starts his new job at Doucette & Stein since the closing of his firm in Polk Defeats Truman. He eventually becomes partner in season 7, but resigns later the season in the episode From Queer to Eternity to pursue a more meaningful career. Cultural References * Jack spoils the ending of The Usual Suspects (1995), to Will, which is regarded as one of the biggest plot twists in film at the time. * Sensing Will's self-doubt, Grace refers to him as Mrs. Doubtfire after the cross-dressing character in the eponymous 1993 film. * When Jack tells Grace that he is going to get ice cream before heading out to his acting class, Grace jokes that he just combine them and study under "Uta Häagen-Dazs", a play on famed acting teacher Uta Hagen and the ice cream brand Häagen-Dazs. * During their first meeting where Ben puts his intimidation tactic on Will, he suggests stroking a white cat, referencing the James Bond villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld, especially his appearance in From Russia with Love (1963). * When Karen causes trouble on Jack's set, he threatens that she will wake up with Rosario's head in her bed, a reference to the iconic scene from The Godfather (1972) where an adversary of the Corleone family wakes up in his bed with the decapitated head of his prized horse. * Will mentions a Gays for Buchanan rally being held at a phone booth. Pat Buchanan is a conservative politician known for his opposition of gay rights. * As Karen puts her tongue on Jack's ear, he tells her he is trying to imagine Matt Damon. Damon later appears in the episode A Chorus Lie. * When Doucette lets Will keep his job after testing him, Will compares him to Willy Wonka from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Coincidentally, Mr. Stein, the other half of Doucette & Stein, would later be played by Gene Wilder who played Willy Wonka in the 1971 film version. Quotes Category:Episodes Category:Season 2